Ninja Theory: Hellblade Has Nothing to Do With Heavenly Sword

August 18, 2014 Written by Zarmena Khan

When Hellblade was revealed at gamescom 2014 last week, a lot of people thought the same thing we did; Heavenly Sword 2. Not only does Hellblade’s protagonist Senua look like Kai from Heavenly Sword, people also pointed out that both games have similar names, too; Heavenly/Hell Sword/Blade. Speaking to Joystiq, Ninja Theory’s Dominic Mathews has said that its upcoming title has nothing to do with its previous project.

It’s a brand new IP. Senua is a new character. It’s not tied to Heavenly Sword at all. I saw someone describe the name as someone just putting Heavenly Sword into Thesaurus.com and going, oh it’s Hellblade. It’s not something where we’ve gone, yeah, let’s make people think it is this. We really like Heavenly Sword. We loved making that game. So it’s actually more just we like making female protagonists that look in a certain style. And we like swords. And we like hell. It’s more that. I know it might appear like we’ve just gone, let’s just stick it in a thesaurus…

When asked if Hellblade was a spiritual successor to Heavenly Sword, Mathews was quick to deny that as well.

No. I wouldn’t say it’s the spiritual successor to Heavenly Sword, because that has certain expectations. I think it’s safer to say if people enjoyed Heavenly Sword, then the aim is they’ll enjoy Hellblade, too. If we said it was the spiritual successor, there would be an expectation there is a story link or a certain type of gameplay or level design. It’s a new IP. It’s a brand new game. It’s brand new characters. It’s a brand new world. It’s not linked at all. But if you like Heavenly Sword, like Enslaved and like what we did, then the aim is you’ll like this, too.

So, to be perfectly clear, this isn’t Heavenly Sword 2, neither game’s protagonist has anything to do with the other, the game’s title is not another take on ‘Heavenly Sword,’ and Hellblade is no spiritual successor. It’s a new IP. Capiche?